The antiscience stance of the Republican candidates for President is getting so chaotic I swear I need a scorecard to keep it all straight. The latest: Michele Bachmann goes antivax.

No, seriously. Generally associated with the far left, antivaccination rhetoric reared its head at the latest Republican candidate debate. In 2007, Governor Rick Perry of Texas — and current front runner of the cohort of White House contenders — issued an Executive Order mandating the Gardasil vaccination for girls. This vaccination prevents girls from getting the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a virus that is a major factor in contracting cervical cancer later in life. This cancer has a greater than 30% fatality rate once contracted, and is a horrible, horrible condition. 20 million people in the US alone carry the virus.

"There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate," Bachmann said after the debate, where she had told Perry on stage that she was "offended" by his decision. "She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine."

The source is incredibly suspect, too. A unnamed woman came up to Bachmann and told her this unsubstantiated story? And Bachmann goes on national TV to score points with it? The line of evidence breaks down at every step here. Bachmann saying this during a nationally televised debate is nothing short of shameful. And reckless.

She’s not the only one making hay of this, either. A PAC backing Ron Paul has a video that calls Gardasil "an STD vaccine". That a pretty cynical spin on it; the issue of vaccinating against HPV is not about sex, it’s about health. However, because HPV is contracted through sexual contact, this also plays into the far-right’s morality issues.

Generally speaking, antivaxxers tend to be to the left of the political spectrum. I doubt Bachmann is sincerely trying to woo that vote. More likely, she is just displaying more of her antiscience predilections like creationism and global warming denialism.

I also doubt Bachmann would’ve gotten the Republican nomination even before she said something like this, but mirroring the thinking of the far-left could very well sink her once and for all inside her own party. We’ll see. But don’t forget: even if and when she’s gone, we’ll still have a coterie of antireality candidates to deal with on that ticket.

Comments (108)

BJN

What’s surprising about power-hungry politicians using any leverage they can to demolish the competition? It’s not surprising that those of the Libertarian Right bent don’t want government to require anything of anyone. “Let ‘em die” is utopia for those folks.

You know, it’s really time to stop calling these people “anti-science”. They’re anti-reality. If they can’t even get basic things like this right, why should they be trusted with making decisions on other parts of reality?

On CNN, Anderson Cooper had a “Best of Bachmann’s Bat Guano Insane Ramblings.” and gave her an overall rating of “Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire” rating. This lady is beyond absolutely certifiably crazy… And it was refreshing to see a commentator clearly state that there has NEVER been a case of autism or any such disability associated with a vaccine.

I am at least amused by her precipitous fall in the polls. Even if it isn’t because she is so fraking crazy (there’s an equally, or more, crazy choice fr the deniers of reality to choose from if you think about it).

Senator Bachmann? It’s embarrassing enough that she’s from Minnesota, but she is not a senator. She represents the Sixth District in the House of Representatives. A district that was gerrymandered to give the Republicans at least one representative in this otherwise rational, left-leaning state. And she was elected with a very small margin, despite the gerrymandering and the fact that it was a three way race with a strong third candidate. We have two very fine senators, thank you very much, there is no need to insult the whole state by giving us all the blame for Bachmann.

Actually the opposition to Gardasil and Ceravix _have_ been mostly orchestrated by the far right. Here in Oz fundamentalist Christian churches (apparently taking the lead from their parent organisations in the US) have organised boycotts of the vaccination program offered to year 8 girls on that grounds that removing the fear of contracting cancer later in life will lead to girls being more promiscuous. Because most human beings would find this sort of attitude absolutely repulsive, the Christian antivaxxers have joined forces with the traditional anti-vaxxers and they now tend to over-emphasise the bad side effects of the vaccine. This sort of attitude is right in line with Bachmann’s track record with extremist religious viewpoints.

Come to think of it… haven’t heard much about/from the anti-vaxxers lately. I’m assuming that this is largely due to Wakefield having been thoroughly discredited. Unfortunately, the Age of Autism and Generation Rescue cretins won’t be staying out of the limelight for long. They are probably just waiting till it is perceived to be safe to crawl out from under their rock.

To contrast this, here in the wonderful country of Australia, Gardasil was recently put on the free medication list under Medicare… if you’re female. Such is our attitude towards vaccinations, some commentators were wondering why it wasn’t subsidised for males as well, since it is males who can carry HPV and spread it to the females.

I do love living here. I reckon I would go crazy with frustration if I was a subject of your raving lunatic politicians. Not to say that my politicians are good.

It probably a good move. There are plenty of anti-science/anti-reality folks on both the right and left (regardless of the imbalance at the political level). She should just go for the whole anti-reality constituency.

The far-right loves making people as scared of the potential consequences of sex (see also, pretty much anything else to do with reproduction) as much as the far-left loves making people scared of any other vaccine.

It’s not that Bachmann is courting the antivaxxers specifically, as much as she’s courting the, “Well, MY children will never have sex before they’re married; they WILL NEVER need this vaccine” crowd.

It is important to note that Perry’s mandate of the gardacil vaccine was incredibly morally questionable. One of his biggest campaign donors stood to gain substantial money from the vaccine. Bachmann’s criticism of it is absolutely bird-brained, however.

Being Brazilian, I never cease to be amused by what Americans call “politics”. So, antivax is a far left viewpoint?… Well, here, in the third world, the only antivax voices you may eventually hear are those of religious fanatics. We’ve been trough a right-wing military dictatorship that supported universal vaccination and our actual president is a former communist guerrilla and the government still supports universal vaccination.

I don’t see how an HPV vaccine is any different from a herpes or syphilis vaccine. They protect against diseases contracted via sexual intercourse. I have no problem vaccinating everybody against those diseases.

What’s amazing is how uniformly the Right Wing has attacked Bachmann on this. She’s not getting any support for her position on this. They’re citing the studies correctly even as they debate whether the vaccine should be mandatory or not. It’s heartening. Hell, Rick Santorum — yes, THAT Rick santorum — articulated a more sensible position, saying we should mandate easily communicable diseases but leave HPV optional.

I love using Politifact to access how truthful a politician is. They rate statements as True, Mostly True, Half True, Mostly False, False, and Pants On Fire. I’ve taken to making an average rating where:

@Mick (#14): In regards to why females are vaccinated and males aren’t – I believe it’s because females are at risk of developing cervical cancer as a result of having HPV, whereas males do not (usually) have any symptoms whatsoever. If you had 100 boys, 100 girls, and 100 shots, would you:
A) Vaccinate all the girls, thus preventing them from getting HPV and removing the corresponding cervical cancer risk completely
B) Vaccinate all the boys, thus preventing them from giving HPV to girls (although those girls can still get HPV from non-vaccinated boys) and you haven’t prevented any symptoms or diseases in the boys since there was no risk to begin with
C) Vaccinate half the boys and half the girls
A bit of a strawman, since I’m limiting the options to only 3 choices. But my point is that if you have a limited number of vaccinations (which, in reality, you do since they are expensive as I understand it) then you’ll want to use them in the most effective way. Why vaccinate the boys if they aren’t in any risk?
As an aside, you vaccinate both boys and girls from whopping cough because everyone is at risk from it – its gender neutral.

@Mark (#22): HPV is a lot different than herpes or syphilis in that HPV doesn’t really have any symptoms in and of itself. Having HPV puts females at a higher risk of getting cervical cancer, so that’s why you vax the girls and not the boys. Herpes and syphilis have a much higher prevalence of symptoms, and they are gender neutral.

(Rebuttal: Yes, I am aware that males can develop oral, neck, and anal cancer as a result of having HPV, but those are very rare as far as I know. Rare enough to justify vaxing the high-risk group before you take care of the low-risk group.)

Can we please be more careful about swerving towards ableism? Saying people are “crazy” or “mentally retarded themselves” for holding these opinions is incredibly dismissive of people with disabilities and mental health issues.

Calling Bachmann’s words “crazy” is dismissive of how calculated this attack actually is. It’s coded slut shaming, and there’s nothing crazy about alienating half of the population by inferring that if women don’t want to get cancer they should keep their legs closed.

Crazy is not synonomous with dangerous. Bachmann is dangerous, but in that highly intelligent way we tend to overlook.

Hearing Bachmann talking, and knowing that she’s even able to create enough of a presence to stand in contention for a possible Presidency (even an extraordinarily unlikely one isn’t as unlikley as I’d like it to be) scares the crap out of me in a big way. That she actually holds any office is just one that fills me with a cold dread.

I strongly disagree that antivax rhetoric is more strongly associated with the far left. Obviously, I’ve been closely watching the antivaxxers for awhile now and I find that it is very much split down the middle, with each side coming to the same conclusion via different reasoning.

On the left, the arguments against vaccines tend to revolve around the natural and organic movements, whereas on the right, the arguments tend more toward distrust of the medical establishment and government organizations like the CDC. Read blogs like Age of Autism and you’ll commonly see lots of religious-type imagery more associated with the right than the left.

The Tea Party’s ideology is firmly rooted in distrust of government. Pharmaceuticals and especially vaccines are some of the most regulated products in the country. It makes sense to me that anti-vaccine viewpoints could easily flow from this combination. I’m actually surprised we haven’t seen more of it.

Bachmann is anti-science, and that is a bad thing. But vaccines are not all created equal, there is much more black magic behind a successful vaccine than goes into a successful drug. Problem is that pharmaceutical companies are now pushing vaccines for everything and trying to win public acceptance to boost their profits. They even collaborate with Hollywood to make movies about how vaccines will save the world from chaos when the next epidemic occurs– as in the new movie “Contagion”. Too bad the producers of Contagion were so busy with their business objectives they forgot that movies actually need good writing and editing to be worth seeing.

Bachmann is not going to be the candidate. You folks need to chill. It’s not happening.

I think you’re wrong about anti-vax people historically being “far left” – all the anti-vax people I’ve ever heard of were Tea Partier types.

And of course your personal observations are iron clad evidence.

It *is* a bridge issue for the far left and far right, but the ring leaders are firmly with the leftist Hollywood crowd. Some on the left use it as a wedge issue against BIG EVIL PHARMA (cue dramatic music and thunder!). Air America, the left wing talk radio experiment, had a steady level of anti-vax crap. Huffington Post was anti-vax central on the intertoobs. Many on the right frame it as a rights issue. They’re just as *wrong*, but at least it’s a more honest, albeit pig headed, opinion.

I’m Mr. Freedom Lover Incarnate, but I fully support total vaccination. You have to abandon ideology and go with what works, and vaccinations work.

I have no use for the Tea Party, but anyone who still trusts the government, large corporations, or *any* concentration of power is absolutely not paying attention, or their brains are completely ossified by ideology. Honestly, folks, I had this stuff pretty much figured out by high school. C’mon already. Break free of the ideological chains that bind you! You can do it! Come to the bright side, where we can think what we want without purity testing it against some manifesto.

You don’t have to trust anyone to support vaccinations. History provides the empirical evidence to support them. No faith in some distant entity (divine, bureaucratic or otherwise) is required.

Phil’s right about anti-vaxxers being traditionally far-left. That was the only place I ever heard it coming from 5-10 years ago. It’s pretty well entrenched in the organic/anti-gmo movements. Recently a lot of tea party and far-right types have taken it up as it fits well with their anti-government conspiracies.

Not that it matters all that much, go “far” in either direction and you basically end up in the same ball of delusional craziness.

This just goes to show that when you go far enough to the left or right, both sides wind up meeting on the back-side of the moon.

Also, Ron Paul can sit and rotate. I was watching him talk about health insurance, and his position boiled down to two points:

1: Freeeeedommmmmmm!!!!!1111 Some people freely choose not to have health insurance. That’s freedom, and freedom is important in a free country. Freedom.
2: Hey, you can walk into any hospital with a life-threatening condition, and they won’t turn you away (just put you and your next of kin in debt for life)!

Srsly, I knew his supporters were nuts, but he’s obviously not all there, either

It’s like someone said “what if we took Palin, made her even weirder, then put her on the top of the ticket”. In a smoke-filled bar. Late at night. While drunk. And then woke up the next morning to see that people were taking it seriously (even just a little bit) like some drunken prank or trip to the tattoo parlour.

…It’s interesting that regulation could be an issue with anti-vaxxers. I read about how the FDA developed – because of some cure-all invented without proper testing that ended up killing people – and it’s not just a very sad story but also one that shows that regulation is incredibly important in preventing deaths/injuries. Are those who are against vaccines because of government regulation aware of the history? Or do they know and just want less regulation anyway?

@Dave#46
“hippy liberals”?? I used to be a hippie…forty-some years ago. They don’t exist anymore. All retired grandparents now.
Just got too tired of banging our heads against the ignorant right wing wall. I suggest you update your worldview to the current century. Take it slowly, so you don’t get the Bends, and you’ll eventually come up to speed.
Or did you mean liberals with wide rear ends? Some of those still exist…is there a vaccine for that?

This hatred of hippies always astounds me. Wow, a group of people who tried to make the world a more tolerant, even loving place. They failed, of course, but even so, we certainly have no room for evil goals like that.

Replace hippie liberal with new-age douchebag, which is where most of the anti-vax, “all natural” crap comes from. Hippies get tossed into the mix because they’re so often associated with the organic food movement.

OK. The political arena goes into vax and antivax.
Just keep vaxing and you outvax them!
That will put survival of the fitest into their face. Or indeed the smartest.
Smart people vax.
Stupids don´t. At the end all our problems will be solved at no expence!
No vax, no cost. And still a positive result!
They´ll go away…
/synic

I think the most hilarious point to be made about her stance is she’s all for getting government out of women’s lives and allowing them to choose to get vaccinated, but she’s also all for getting the government INTO women’s lives and NOT allowing them to choose to get abortions.

It’s amazing what anti-reality politicians can say and get away with without questioning.

OK, so let’s suppose that Bachmann drops out as a 2012 candidate, and let’s also suppose she doesn’t make a VP or Cabinet shortlist after some inevitable “bury the hatchet” concession in a few months. Unfortunately, the problem doesn’t end with Bachmann. With the pressure for absolute, unquestioning party line compliance on the hard right, will the rest of the GOP (including state representatives) feel it necessary to start beating anti-vax drums just to maintain street cred? Ill-conceived campaign lines aside, does it seem likely that zealous liber/tea/servatives will be sponsoring a wave of state-level anti-vaccination bills in the year to come?

@ MT-LA: You missed my point, whitch is that HPV is just as much an STD as syphilis and herpes. Gardasil IS an “STD vaccine”. The difference between me and the Ron Paul PAC is that I have no problem with that.

Hippies are ridiculed because, as the Geth might say, their code was inferior.

And how many (of the guys, at least) admit now they only were in it mainly to meet hippy chicks?

The political continuum, rather than being a line, is better thought of as being a circle.

Personally, I think they converge to two completely different discontinuities, but that’s just topography.

Calling Bachmann’s words “crazy” is dismissive of how calculated this attack actually is.

Correct. Like I keep saying, our system is such that the personality type of the narcissistic sociopath can rise up through it with great ease. Are they crazy, or just a specific personality type?

There’s articles you can read about how things like Asperger’s and other things considered borderline personality “disorders” might not really be disorders but simply outliers on the Gaussian curve. Our culture treats them differently, so they tend to not engage well. Somewhere along the way our culture decided that someone who can focus intensely on a single activity is somehow “wrong”. Forget the fact that people like that give us the modern world.

The politician is simply a four or five sigma type that has adapted well to our culture and political institutions. It’s *worse* than crazy. They know *exactly* what they are doing, and they don’t care what effect it has on things outside what matters to them directly.

Huh. Maybe I should do that “Wild Kingdom Of Politics” web site. I’m good at focusing on things.

Say what you like QD, at least that was a time of big ideas (some of which actually succeeded, like stopping a war), as opposed to today’s world of tiny, self absorbed ideas; blind obedience; and shiny gadgets.

My apologies to readers:
“lazy, morano-type gametes” should have included torpid, bleached, can’t spell fool without “U”, 2 step scientific method, and never stealing relevant intellectual property because later this day:

“Watch Now: Climate Depot’s Morano on Canadian TV: ‘ … Gore has utterly and completely failed… ‘climate astrology’ … Morano: ‘No matter … it’s just what global warmists would have expected. It is now akin to predictions of Mayan calendar or Nostradamus…’” (enrichment through corruption station found on 9/16/11) (home page soundbites written/assembled in a fraudulent/plagiaristic/incitement to riot T-buggers by Marc ‘conserving failed states’ Morano – peerless container model for Koch ExxonMassingill purchased corporate fraud+crimes against nature with w-Times Rev. Rush Moon types and gangs working a tomorrow’s con with legal slavery today; elite corporate whore who still lacks a page in en.wikipedia.org to chronicle his years of evil for hire, animal abuse, and visual challenges; climatedepot.com).

“45. Ozonator aka Robert Rhodes Says: September 16th, 2011 at 1:49 am … With the t-GOP filling the void tween the 3rd Reich and the the last Mayan calendar stone – Investors in AGW, “Audience at tea party debate cheers leaving uninsured to die” … with… sex tourism (Limbaugh’s ice-t for gargle and lazy, morano-type gametes)”.

To be fair an balanced as predicted AGW has catastrophically metastasized far beyond temperatures to measure energy releases. For example and with condolences, “An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 hit Japan on Saturday 126 km (80 miles) east-southeast of Hachinohe, off the east coast of Honshu island … no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning“ (“Magnitude 6.6 quake hits Japan, no damage reported”; Reuters; msnbc.msn.com, 9/16/11). With n=32, “B). Including the odd chance of JJBAL Fireballs with each prediction … the specifics of the Giulaino – Gansu Model (8/21 – 27/11) of extreme AGW earthquake warnings among tectonic energy lines with individual predictions for regions (magnitude in Richters) are: … Honshu (7+) … C). GBRWE official experimental quake, volcano, and other models are US. … A correct for any of these earthquake models is anything within 0.5 Richters below given prediction and anything above the prediction for the region (within 100 miles, greater if people felt it). … 6). 6-week model … Japan” (“GBRWE 8/21 – 27/11”s Extreme Planetary Warnings for Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Solar/Terrestrial Flares from Human Activities”; Robert Rhodes, Supplemental; GBRWE 8/21 – 27/11, 8/20/11).

Its the first time I read that antivaccination is associated with the FAR left, but I guess that depends on how you define “far left”, usually that means leftist Socialists of VERY broad an usually incompatible characteristics (e.g. Marxists, Marxians, Marxist-Leninists, Trotskysts, Stalinists, Maoists, all the different kinds of Anarchists, etc) and those groups usually are in favor of vaccinations simply because they support strong state intervention (You might think anarchists would oppose vaccinations just because they are mandated by the state, but that is not actually the case for more complex reasons, same about education, etc).

Maybe you are talking about what are usually called ehm…”hippies”?

Never heard of that very VAGUELY defined group being included in the Far Left.

Not the first time and not the only person to do it. Why do you stand at the same level of antiscience “Creationism” and “Global Warming denial”? Many scientists and institutions don´t support the idea of androgenic global warming, why do you try to fool us in such a simple way? puag!

QD, you utterly failed to grasp my point. In fact, you missed it so completely I would suspect you were just goofing on me. Or maybe I just didn’t make myself clear; that’s possible. Oh, well.

The one thing you did get right, btw, is that, yes, I really do hate blind obedience that much. As a “skeptic” you should, too. Actually, isn’t that the definition, really? But, again, maybe you were just being silly.

“Generally speaking, antivaxxers tend to be to the left of the political spectrum.”

[citation needed] There is no evidence that I’m aware of that antivaxxers tend left. I suspect that most of these fringe beliefs are held by low information voters of either stripe but it just seems like they are on the left because most people are not actually anti-social regressive personalities but are more community minded.

drksky said:” Hippies get tossed into the mix because they’re so often associated with the organic food movement.”

Alex Jones has advertisements on his show for health foods as do many other right wingers. Food choices do not divide into clean political lines as they once did. Coast to Coast is on Fox Radio networks and the same ads that you hear on Alex Jones or Coast to Coast you can also hear on Hannity or Limbaugh.

“Steve Jobs was a hippie, right?”

No he wasn’t, neither is Wozniac. Jobs is a businessman and Woz wrote about his experiences in college and his clashes with the very anti-business attitudes there. Life is not Black vs White, Right vs Left, theist vs atheist. To think that is true is a very glib and superficial way of looking at the world.

Grimoire said:“Seriosuly, so to an actual libertarian site like Reason. Oh, yeah, they *love* the far right GOP there.”

That is because when you are on the extreme right the GOP does begin to look like the left. Libertarianism is a phenomenon of the right and can be summed up as “The rich should be able to keep all their money and do whatever they want.” Which is in no way a liberal sentiment.

So far as I can see, Perry and Bachmann are competing for who is the least scientifically literate, and the most religiously indoctrinated. Both already deny anthropogenic climate change and evolution (as does Ron Paul, incidentally). Bachmann has taken the anti-science lead with this vaccinations nonsense. The only way I see Perry regaining ground is if he claims he’s been abducted and abused by aliens, that he’s found the Yeti, or perhaps if he claims that Bachmann is a shape-shifting lizard a la David Icke.

I keep advertising, but I hope it’s at least useful. I’ve compiled a list of what EACH and EVERY Republican 2012 candidate says about climate change and evolution.

An outsourced sterile gamete steals from this blog because it would kill an extremist media outlet to do any honest work but a great no-fly list for civilized countries. Putting the “t” party back in Turkish baths, “Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page … September 16, 2011 … Story #5: Enviro-Wackos Worry That Gore’s Hurting Movement … RUSH: You remember our man in Washington, Marc Morano. He’s now global warming watchdog, and he’s got a website called Climate Depot … what Morano is doing is good … And Morano has worked with James Inhofe, senator from Oklahoma. … There are a lot of people out there who are doing work on this. Andrew Breitbart. … Breitbart published pictures of Weiner” (the old, ugly and evil Rush “looting” Limbaugh with Hannity/Noory how to guide of extremist Republican and Christian outlets for creating legal illnesses, murders for hire, and failed antebellum states with willing accomplices and sham brides and sex tours, another GOP human trafficker by harvesting humans like Esso-Koch whose products kill people; unable to sell – NRA gun/other erection products, hair/other plugs, winter clothing except Mittens Romney, disaster insurance, Nazi products ‘cept Exxon chemicals, crayon-ready denier college textbooks/manifestoes, spontaneous abortion office products, while conserving the flames of the new aristocracy; rushlimbaugh.com).

@61 QuietDesperation: Huh. Maybe I should do that “Wild Kingdom Of Politics” web site. I’m good at focusing on things.
Go for it! My offer to help still stands; even if all that’s necessary (or all I’m qualified for) is repetition for effect and general cheerleading. I could be your Ed McMahon. Heyoooh!

Clearly if a woman has sex before, during, or after marriage she deserves to get an entirely preventable disease and die. Also, there are no other STDs such as herpes or HIV that will prevent people from having sex willy nilly if we vaccinate against HPV.

The internet collective consciousness is starting to wake up. (It’s either that or schizophrenia.) Google “Ozonator aka Robert Rhodes” for a little trip down the rabbit hole. Remember what the door mouse said.

This is just fantastic though – “An outsourced sterile gamete steals from this blog because it would kill an extremist media outlet to do any honest work ” It’s near equal in awesomeness is: “With the t-GOP filling the void tween the 3rd Reich and the the last Mayan calendar stone”.

Libertarianism is a phenomenon of the right and can be summed up as “The rich should be able to keep all their money and do whatever they want.”

Yes, boil down a philosophy you disagree with the something shallow and simple. It’s easier than thinking, I suppose. There’s libertarians who are probably better called anarchists, and those who just want to see a few libertarian reforms to the existing system, and all those in between.

@43 – There is a large and increasing percentage of the American public who do not have health insurance because they cannot afford it – not because they “choose” not to have it. How, for example, is it a choice to not have insurance when one grosses $1600/month, and premiums would be $500/month? There is little choice there, alas.
The problem began back in 1982 when health care was deregulated, and allowed to become a profit making enterprise. Very rapidly, the focus of too many of the health care providers went from providing as much, good, care as they could to their patients to inflicting as many high-profit treatments and tests on them as they could, so as to maximize the amount of money they could collect.
It is the matter of a few moments spent searching on the Net to be able to compare costs and levels of care available in the United States with the many other countries who provide universal health care, paid for by the government. One of the striking facts that pops up is that health care costs in those countries providing universal care are about half what they are in the USA, and, the level of care is at least as good, and often better than is available here.
Many people who are against universal care say that they do not want a faceless bureaucrat at a governmental desk, deciding what treatment they can receive. They do not seem to realize that right now, even with their insurance, they already HAVE a faceless bureaucrat making that sort of decision about their health care. However, while a governmental bureaucrat might well be fairly neutral in their decision making, the person doing it now is employed by the insurance company and has a vested interest in denying as much care as possible, so as to minimize the checks the insurance company has to write. It is a bit of a conflict of interest, alas, but it is the way things work now.
As for the matter of ongoing debt and such…let us say that a person who has worked hard through their life, but, been poor at amassing wealth needs an organ transplant in middle age. That transplant can easily cost $500,000.00 – and without insurance, is, essentially an impossible goal. Is it a good thing that this person dies 20 or so years sooner than they might have if they had the transplant?
Just something to think about
xmundt

@84 dave mundt: Many people who are against universal care say that they do not want a faceless bureaucrat at a governmental desk, deciding what treatment they can receive. They do not seem to realize that right now, even with their insurance, they already HAVE a faceless bureaucrat making that sort of decision about their health care.

EXACTLY. I hear that argument all the time, and it bugs the crap out of me. Given the choice between a faceless bureaucrat who’s under pressure to make money without regard to my circumstances, and a faceless bureaucrat who’s at least theoretically supposed to be representing me, I know which one I’ll pick…

@85 PayAsYouStargaze: That’s good to hear. A nonsense web bot is at least mildly amusing; whereas seeing a person suffering from the sort of psychosis that causes them to post that stuff would just be sad.

I’ll add that googling just Robert Rhodes tends to link to a number of reputable individuals, such as an architect, a historian, a barrister and a senior electronics engineer. The Ozonator bit seems to be where the crazy comes from.

I will also say I don’t understand that POV. I live in a country where there is universal health care. I also have private health care. At no point have I ever been denied any kind of medical attention/treatment due to any faceless bureaucrat. In fact, I’ve never had to submit to any kind of questioning, application or other form of request, for any treatment that I have ever required. And I’ll never get turned down for “pre-existing conditions”. And I don’t have to worry about changing my job and losing company health cover; because my insurance isn’t related to that.

Whenever I travel to the US I make sure I have travel insurance for health. I’d hate to think of what would happen if I ended up needing medical attention there. No matter how bad my local experience of doctors/hospitals has been (and lately it has sucked), I just thank FSM I’m not in the US. Especially because my bills are already getting high due to lots of tests/appointments, and that would bankrupt me in the US after the first couple of trips to the doctor.

I’ll take “faceless bureaucrat” universal healthcare over “insurance/treatment too expensive” anytime. All I need to do is provide my healthcare number and my tests are covered (heck, for the basic ones, like blood tests, I don’t even need to fill out any forms, just provide the doctor’s referral); and my doctor/hospital bills are subsidised heavily, even with the expensive specialists.

Americans seem to spend too much time worrying about their own personal freedoms and not enough time actually looking at how universal healthcare has been implemeted in other places. I have *more* freedom here to choose doctors, treatments and hospitals (and change jobs) than I would in the US. And yet people in the US freak out about becoming more like us “socialist” countries…. I will never understand it.

(Now if I could just find some way to get my local pharmacy to get rid of all the woo natural crap and ear candles, I’d be happy)

Anti-vax = Anti-facts. I, too, did not realize that most anti-vaxxers were on the far left side. Linking the HPV vaccine to potential promiscuity is so far right wing that I assumed this was the general anti-facts approach. As another poster said, perhaps we should be calling these folks anti-reality, rather than anti-science. Anyone up for forming the Reality Party?

I see “PayasYouStargaze” is not big on medical prevention nor clearly posted timelines.

Crazy is a typical extremist distraction much like using server farms to posting similar names to mine with mug- shots on search engine images. Whereas, noting simple dates on a calendar and counting on fingers (and toes if from LSU) is basic science that precedes the scientific method. Environmental racism includes withholding medical care and providing unlimited AGW. Predicting AGW quakes is the quickest way to prove what extremist Republicans and Christians claims is a hoax. Especially since, “Why Earthquakes Are Still Impossible to Predict” (Lars Ceranna, German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources; editor: Thilo Kunzemann; knowledge.allianz.com, 4/7/09).

PS – noen, I am looking forward to my 2nd medal in life after getting the 1st 1 for showing up to a junior high school band performance!

Once more, as with global warming/climate change, the Right has deceitfully managed to relegate the critical, human issues of disease preventing vaccines into a petty political issue to garner voter support. The word ‘despicable’ comes to mind, as it often does when discussing the nonsensical ramblings of those who refuse reality.

During the last Republican debate on CNN, did you notice how Perry weaseled out of his responsibility to protect young people from developing cancer, by essentially agreeing that his executive order was a mistake? Instead of standing up for helping to prevent disease, and thereby saving lives through the application of vaccinations such as the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine, he tucked his tail between his legs and obediently sat down to chastise vaccines along with those who accused him of doing it solely for campaign contributions.

We need to make an important distinction here. Yes, he accepted money from Merck (and either lied or forgot the amounts received) and I understand the implications of his doing so. BUT let’s not unthinkingly agree with Bachmann’s anti-science/anti-reality stance by saying that this is a plan to needlessly vaccinate kids for no other reason other than monetary gain. If you believe that than you may as well believe that seat belts serve no useful purpose, and are only installed in vehicles to make the vehicle and seat belt manufacturers more money. No one in their right mind would entertain such a ridiculous notion, unless perhaps you’re someone who thinks like Michelle Bachmann.

Please allow me to bring up one more subject I’ve heard discussed on Fox News and read on Right leaning blog posts/comments. Repeatedly, despicable keeps coming to mind. Because a young person is given the HPV vaccine it won’t cause them to run out and have sex with everyone in their neighborhood. There are a number of other sexually transmitted diseases such as herpes, hepatitis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, bacterial vaginosis, HIV/AIDS, pelvic inflammatory disease, syphilis, trichomoniasis, and other STDs that they should be worrying about before thinking they are invincible porn stars because they had one vaccine. The ‘promiscuity license’ is a preposterous idea raised with the intent to push the emotional hot buttons of those who think (or want YOU to think) a disease preventing vaccine is solely designed to encourage teenage promiscuity and irresponsibility for one’s actions. Nothing could be further from the truth or from reality. Give your kids (that you as parents fed good and helpful information, hopefully) more credit and faith for choosing intelligent decisions for themselves that can also directly affect the health of other people.

What does it mean when it says that I’m not big on medical prevention? Is that prevention of medicine or the medical prevention of something? Clearly posted timelines? Those seem like a good thing. I’d take that as an attempt to strawman my position, but it doesn’t really say anything and I never said anything about my position.

I don’t know if the rest of that before the PS to neon is aimed at me, but that’s probably because it makes no sense at all. It’s like a bad anagram of some sort. Well the first word makes sense. “Crazy!”

Poor “PayasYouStargaze” – you owe the skeptic tanks money at this point in your tired distractions.

“Heartland Institute … a science-free zone where cigarette smoke harms nobody and the earth is cooling. … offered $1,000 plus travel costs and expenses and placement of the speech in a book for a short speech at an anti-global warming conference in NYC. The American Enterprise Institute (a conservative think tank) offered $10,000 to anyone who could write something to undermine an IPCC report on climate change. Both organizations are backed by big oil. Big time. … These payments are aypical for legitimate scientific conferences” (“Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Who Resigned Over Global Warming Had a Motive”; By Over_L; my.auburnjournal.com, 9/15/11).

The 1 step sciency method of von Bachmann of claiming a vaccine causes retardation (in someone else) was pioneered by Big Tobacco which was taken it beyond by none other than Dr. Roy ‘d-rage’ Spencer – a public fund-sucker at UAB. “Jul 17, 2010 … My Global Warming Skepticism, for Dummies … By Dr. Roy Spencer … here’s a list of basic climate change questions, and brief answers … it only takes one of us to be right for the IPCC’s anthropogenic global warming (AGW) house of cards to collapse. … the way the researcher community used to operate, before politics, policy outcomes, and billions of dollars got involved” (reality abuse by Joseph ‘EIB coli cocktail wiener’ D’Aleo, CCM, IUD, IED, BMF, STD, H1N1, SIDs, failed state free lunch predictor, laundering t-GOP via paypal, HIV, and ExxonKoch approved TV weather presenter aka another pseudo-scientist, denier, and corporate whore; new web crimes against humanity, nature, and big oil & small snake wrestling with Joe Bastardi since March 11, 2011; icecap.us). Roy’d has the genderless, ubiquitous gandmotherly headshot while on the boards of the Cornwall Alliance and the George C. Marshall Institute to funnel extremist Republican and Christian payola to the Looter Limbaughs for paid endorsements of an “official climatologist” supporting investments in global destruction via the Exxon-Kochs – neither has yet to predict anything but a free lunch nor offer free fertility/STD drugs.

“If you believe that than you may as well believe that seat belts serve no useful purpose, and are only installed in vehicles to make the vehicle and seat belt manufacturers more money. No one in their right mind would entertain such a ridiculous notion, unless perhaps you’re someone who thinks like Michelle Bachmann.”

I agree. Equally foolish is Senator Imhofe’s contention that the main (or even sole) motivation for promoting green technologies, conservation, and the development of renewable energy sources is a selfish desire to enrich the executives of recycling companies and the companies that manufacture wind and solar solar power generation equipment, and appease wealthy lobbyists who represent them.

@84 dave mundt: Many people who are against universal care say that they do not want a faceless bureaucrat at a governmental desk, deciding what treatment they can receive. They do not seem to realize that right now, even with their insurance, they already HAVE a faceless bureaucrat making that sort of decision about their health care.

EXACTLY. I hear that argument all the time, and it bugs the crap out of me. Given the choice between a faceless bureaucrat who’s under pressure to make money without regard to my circumstances, and a faceless bureaucrat who’s at least theoretically supposed to be representing me, I know which one I’ll pick…

Amen to both of you! It is a complete mystery to me why anyone would think that an employee of a private, commercial insurance company whose job security probably depends on minimizing the amount of money his company has to pay out could be more trusted to do the right thing than a government bureaucrat.

Here in Oz fundamentalist Christian churches (apparently taking the lead from their parent organisations in the US) have organised boycotts of the vaccination program offered to year 8 girls on that grounds that removing the fear of contracting cancer later in life will lead to girls being more promiscuous.

I tried to get my head around this statement. Does this mean that those churches actually believe that fear of cancer is what prevents girls from being promiscuous in any way? Seriously?

Oh, wait. I get it. They’ll say any old stuff to support their bid for notoriety.

Well, I’m sure the full reasons are quite complex and contain many subtle factors, but I’ve a couple of guesses:

(1) TV commercials (and televised debates). Because parties are allowed to screen any old crap on TV with (IIUC) the only limits being the amount of airtime they can buy, every major election is turned into a lowest-common-denominator popularity contest.

(2) Every democratic system in the world whose culture is focussed on personal gratification will always end up with the election winners being the ones who promise to deliver the most to the broadest range of people. Even if they repeatedly fail to deliver.

I don’t see how an HPV vaccine is any different from a herpes or syphilis vaccine. They protect against diseases contracted via sexual intercourse.

I think you need to specify that you are referring to genital herpes as effected by the Type II Herpes Simplex Virus, not herpes keratitis that is caused by the Type I Herpes Simplex Virus (incidentally, most of us carry HSV-I anyway but we are usually asymptomatic. Occasionally, one can get herpetic ulcers in the mouth, particularly when on a course of antibiotics, or one can get the cold sores which are the commonest symptom of herpes keratitis).

This hatred of hippies always astounds me. Wow, a group of people who tried to make the world a more tolerant, even loving place. They failed, of course, but even so, we certainly have no room for evil goals like that.

More power to the uber rich, I say!

Yes, and if anyone tries to tell you how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, nail them to a tree. Just like that last one, about 2000 years ago.

Say what you like QD, at least that was a time of big ideas (some of which actually succeeded, like stopping a war), as opposed to today’s world of tiny, self absorbed ideas; blind obedience; and shiny gadgets.

Amazing….here we are at more than 100 posts, and, Godwin’s Law remains dormant! No wonder I enjoy reading the BA blog and its accompanying comments.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress:
Nigel Depledge (99) gave some good points about why American society has evolved to the current sad state of affairs. I have ranted about this a bit in my own blog (shameless plug follows: http://blog.beemandave.com/) but thought I would touch base about it here.
As to the points….Not only are the candidates allowed to spew any mindless drivel they want to in order to gain the love of the mob, the inability of the masses to perform even the simplest amount of analytical thought means that the candidates can only on say anything they want, they can stand before two different audiences, and say contradictory things without fear of retribution. Other than a few commentators, apparently no one cares what the candidates say to OTHER people…only what they say to THEM. To add to this, the federal government has given up on even doing lip service towards presenting a balanced set of views. In 1949, the FCC implemented the “Fairness Doctrine”. This rule, which applied to all broadcasters required them to ” devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters”. Well, that lasted until 1989, when the FCC really stopped enforcing it as part of the licensing requirements for broadcasters, and, the rule was entirely removed in 2011. While the Fairness Doctrine was enforced, it did a good job. While there was nothing stopping the audience from switching channels, many would watch simply because there were no remotes and it was easier to watch the other views than it was to get up and turn the knob (Remember Knobs for changing channels-or am I just older than dirt????)
As a natural part of this tailoring the message to the audience, it is a very astute observation that the candidates most offer bread and circuses to their audiences, and make sure that they push the audience’s hot buttons to ensure that the audience members believe that the candidate is driving their bandwagon. Again, the increasing apathy in America helps make sure that the elected Representatives keep that 97% or so return rate.
However, one thing that continues to puzzle me is how can an America voter blame the current administration for the damage done to the society and economy by the previous administration. It is as if America has become blanketed with stupid gas and the overall IQ is rapidly approaching room temperature.
Having ranted on about THAT for a bit…I thought I would say a word about the original topic – Mandatory HPV vaccine shots.
In general, I am very pro-vaccination. I am perfectly ok with the school system having a list of vaccinations required to break the cycle of terrible diseases that can be communicated by casual contact, including sharing food. Good riddance to them, too. I am less sanguine about the HPV vaccine being included in the mix as a requirement because it smells to me of another step by the government to infiltrate itself in the lives of the citizens and keep them infantile. I DO think it would be a great thing if every pubescent girl was inoculated, because as the posting points out cervical cancer is not a fun way to go. However, that should be the responsibility and choice of the parents, after they have been educated about the facts about the vaccine, and the consequences for NOT getting the shot.
I have to say that these people that claim that getting this vaccine (or sex ed, or freely available condoms, or for that matter, legal and safe abortions) will cause their little snowflake to turn into a raging nymphomaniac! They obviously do not remember that time of their lives – kids of that age do not NEED help in that area, once puberty kicks in and the hormones start surging! I suspect that many parents might well be shocked and surprised about the sexual activity of their daughters and sons if they were to find out the truth. So…it seems to me that any parent with a lick of sense would want their daughter to get the jab.
In a slight ramble….I also do not buy for a second that this (or any other vaccine) will, in itself, “cause” neurological issues in children. I am willing to say that the development of the mind is a complicated thing, so, there may be an outside chance that a vaccine or mixture of vaccines MIGHT influence that development…but, until it is proven by science, I discount any theories that blame the jabs for the problems completely
Yet more to think about….
xmundt

With gays able to openly kill in the military and then get married, I bet the following legal terrorists will really avoid public service and share needles –

Honorary pilodinal cyst of 4F by Tea, “97. PayasYouStargaze Says: September 19th, 2011 at 2:18 am I’m a bit concerned that that bot keeps going after me now. Only a bit though, it’s ramblings still make no sense.”

My comment was to tie up a loose thread from 1 of many extremist media outlets which get advertisers and other supporters to pay for mass entertainment that nullifies the last 200 years of scientific advancement and destroys healthcare for current and future generations.